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In the second letter to the Thessalonians, the apostle Paul speaks of 'what holds', which prevents the world from falling completely under the total power of the Antichrist. Saint Jerome, like many other famous theologians believed that the apostle was referring to the Roman Empire. And, as everyone knows, after the fall of Rome in the fifth century, it was the Byzantine autocrats who became the official leaders of the Empire. From the fifteenth century, when the Turks took Constantinople and where were the Russian Tsar Ivan III married the niece of the last Byzantine emperor, Russia adopted for official political ideology doctrine 'Moscow is the third Rome'. From that moment, the Russian tsars are seen as responsible for 'withholding' the world from falling into evil. And until the 1917 revolution, they strictly accomplished this mission. Need I remind you that this is the Tsar Alexander I who arrested Napoleon? Adapted from the source document.

When the Arab Spring swept away authoritarian regimes in North Africa, the West's response was virtually unanimous: these revolutions would kick off a new democratic era capable of reconciling formerly opposing forces, including those that had been persecuted. Once the dictators fell, according to this rosy scenario, secularists, unionists and progressives, free-marketers, the religious and everybody else would all be living in harmony, with free, democratic elections. But several months later, disenchantment is in the air. Elections in Tunisia and Egypt resulted in victories by Islamist parties which, while claiming to be "moderate", still defend a profoundly obscurantist vision of the world. In Libya, the chairman of the National Transitional Council promised that Sharia law would prevail. In Syria, if the Assad regime should fall, the Muslim Brothers could well take power. We are beginning to understand that the Arab Spring may well be followed by an Islamist Winter... Adapted from the source document.